ACM ByteCast John Hennessy & Dave Patterson - Episode 1
17 snips
Apr 29, 2020 
In this engaging discussion, John Hennessy, a Stanford professor and former university president, teams up with David Patterson, a Berkeley professor and Google engineer. They delve into their 'aha moments' that sparked their groundbreaking work on RISC architecture. Topics include the future of memory technologies, the evolving landscape for hardware startups leveraging AI, and the critical importance of security collaboration. They also reflect on how the open-source community can drive advancements in both software and hardware.
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RISC's Pivotal Aha Moment
- Dave Patterson and John Hennessy had an "aha moment" during their RISC project in the 1980s when they realized simple instructions could be more efficient.
- Their insight was that a small increase in instructions executed was outweighed by faster clock rates, making RISC practical.
Dennard Scaling's Crucial Role
- Dennard scaling enabled power to stay constant as transistor count increased, allowing Moore's law to hold without chips overheating.
- With the end of Dennard scaling over a decade ago, power efficiency is now a primary design constraint.
Flash Changed Storage Paradigm
- Flash memory displaced mechanical magnetic disks, transforming storage from spinning drives to solid state.
- Emerging memory technologies are promising, but commercial viability often takes about a decade to materialize.
